In this video, Fr. Matthew H. Phelan, O. de M., Pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Vicar Provincial of Mercedarians in the U.S., discusses the apparition of Our Lady of the Poor and reflects on how we can embrace the Blessed Mother’s example during Lent.

Transcript:

We’re discussing Our Lady of the Poor and her appearance in Belgium, and it’s a rather interesting apparition that happened in 1933. Some of the interesting things about the apparition which took place between January 15 and March 2 of 1933, it was just really before World War II and the rise of the Nazis, but she comes and says “I come to alleviate suffering.” And then if we look what would happen, not long after that— over a decade of war that would ravage Europe. And you can look at that very cynically and say, “I thought you came to alleviate suffering!” And then here, some of the most profound suffering in human history took place. You know, with the mystery of suffering, it’s something we try to do every Lent, we try to renew this idea of the mystery of suffering but uniting our suffering to Christ’s by embracing it, asking God’s grace to endure suffering; it’s not something that destroys us but actually something that opens us up to grace. And so, in alleviating suffering, God doesn’t always remove it. But He gives us strength to endure it. He gives us strength to have our suffering transformed into something not that is negative, but actually something that becomes a channel of graces, a channel of His love for others. And really that is at the heart of the message of Our Lady of Banneux, not that we see poverty as a curse or somehow God is cursing us in poverty, but that God is revealing His grace and His love even through our human suffering. But when we look at the message that heaven brings us, again, it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have difficult times. We’re going to have difficult times, and again the whole mystery of Lent is learning to embrace suffering, uniting it to Christ to give us strength at times when sufferings come that maybe we don’t invite. In Lent we freely embrace that, to give us strength to endure the times that other sufferings will come, maybe that we don’t welcome so much. But we recognize that God is purifying us through that. The message of Our Lady is not one that looks to create heaven on earth, but to remind us that heaven is not here on earth, we’re given glimpses of it. Heaven gives us strength while we’re here on earth, but there’s another place that we’re going where all of the suffering of the world indeed will be removed, and we will experience that eternal bliss. But while we’re here, we are called to accompany Our Lord on Calvary, He gives us strength, and we’re called then to be that revelation of God’s love to others.